


Let Me Come Home

by zetsubonna



Series: Easy Living [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes-centric, Established Relationship, M/M, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 23:41:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3997603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zetsubonna/pseuds/zetsubonna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While acting his age with Steve, Bucky remembers his brothers and sister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Me Come Home

Bucky remembers that he’s the oldest of four, but it doesn’t mean all that much at first, just a dull, empty ache among all the other dull, empty aches. The more he remembers, the more it hurts, and he tries not to, mostly. Steve already knew where his family was: Rebecca was buried with her husband and one of her kids who’d died young. Richard had taken a bullet in Korea, without the questionable benefits of science to resurrect his unwilling body. John was in an assisted living facility with late stage dementia.

Bucky doesn’t want to remember them that way.

★

It starts small enough. Natasha is peeling potatoes and Sam is checking the roast, and then they hear a loud thump and a chorus of laughter from the living room, followed by a snarl and a second thump. Then Bucky and Steve are both laughing. There’s another thump, then Steve groans. Bucky cackles, and Sam goes to check on them.

“What’s going on?”

“Steve kicked me!” Bucky says, and Steve giggles hysterically.

“He fell off the couch!” Steve wheezes, just in time to get smacked again.

“So I pulled him off, too,” Bucky says, because obviously it was justified.

“I hit my head!” Steve says, and Bucky sticks his tongue out at him.

“No damage done,” he says, and Steve starts tearing up from laughing so hard.

Sam shakes his head. “You two are obviously bored. Bucky, come cut onions. Steve, vacuum the damned popcorn up off my rug.”

“Yes, Sam!” they chorus, and Sam shakes his head again, sighing.

★

“Becky used to do that,” he tells Steve later, when they’re washing the dishes and it’s Natasha and Sam’s turn to be useless on the sofa. “The thing with the cold toes under my thigh.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, nodding. “Her feet were always cold.”

“She kicked pretty hard,” Bucky says, looking at the dishtowel. “I’d pinch her, and she’d kick the shit out of me, but she never quit trying.”

“You’ve got a warm ass,” Steve says, and Bucky snorts.

 

★

“Fuck!” Bucky yelps into the comm.

“You okay?” Natasha asks.

“He dropped a magazine on his knee bone!” Steve is giggling again, and Natasha presses her lips together.

“Wait a minute,” Clint says. “How does the world’s most legendary sniper drop a magazine on his knee?”

“Ask Captain Ass-merica,” Bucky growls, and apparently everyone is just leaving their mics on, because Steve goes off in another gale of laughter, and Natasha rolls her eyes.

“Turn off the mics when you’re not checking in,” she says archly.

“Yes, Natasha.” Bucky and Steve speak in unison, and Clint is fairly sure they sound like smart ass kindergartners on purpose.

★

“So it reminded me of something,” Bucky says, nuzzling Steve’s hair, arm around his shoulders.

Steve hums.

“That slam in my knee, it hurt more than it should have,” Bucky says. “But it shouldn’t have hardly hurt at all. It reminded me of that time Ricky was playing baseball in the house, did I tell you about that?”

Steve hums in the negative, kissing Bucky’s jaw.

“He was playin’ catch with himself, being a stupid brat, not listening to me when I was in charge, you know, his usual,” Bucky huffs, and Steve chuckles quietly. “And I’m in Ma’s room, doing my homework, because her sewing chair had the best reading light.”

Steve closes his eyes, smiling softly, listening.

“So he’s standing in the doorway, smarting off, and I’m trying to do something, I don’t know, it was probably figures, and he’s throwing the ball higher and higher, and eventually he puts a little too much backspin on it and it goes careening across Ma’s vanity, headin’ straight for that violet water she used to wear in her hair when she dressed up. I hit my knees and caught it before it crashed to the floor, and then I chased Rick out of there and thrashed him.”

“Sounds right,” Steve says.

“He was such a shit,” Bucky mumbles. “God, I miss him.”

★

“What the Hell?!” Rhodey exclaims as Bucky and Steve come crashing down outside Clint’s second story window. The yelp is echoed by Pepper downstairs as they land in the hedge, and both are answered with howls of laughter.

“Guys?” Rhodey leans out the window as Clint and Sam step out on the porch.

“We’re okay!” Bucky announces.

“You’re okay!” Steve huffs. “You landed on me.”

“Well, luckily you’re a goddamned ox now,” Bucky teases. “You’d have died otherwise.”

“Get your tin can elbow out of my diaphragm,” Steve says, and the two of them tumble out of the bushes, smacking each other and taking turns pulling each other backward, until Bucky grabs Steve’s whole face and shoves him so he lands on his ass in the middle of Clint’s least dead flowerbed.

“Aww, flowers!” Clint says, shoulders slumping, and Bucky and Steve both wince.

“We’ll fix it,”  Bucky promises.

“Damn right you will,” Clint says, shaking his head. “What’s wrong with you two?”

“Just horsing around,” Steve says.

“Stop half killing each other, would you?” Clint says, kneeling to see if his begonias are salvageable.

★

“We gotta fix those begonias,” Bucky says to Steve as they’re driving home from Clint’s in the dark. His right arm’s out the window, the wind’s in his hair. Steve almost doesn’t hear it.

“Yeah, that was shit of us,” Steve says. “We gotta be more careful.”

“Nah,” Bucky says, turning toward him. “They’re getting used to that. Half his flowers are dead, too. We gotta fix the begonias specifically. They smell like Becky’s perfume.”

Steve glances at him, smiles. Nods. “Yeah, Buck. They do.”

★

“Ow!” Steve yelps. “You did that on purpose!”

“Maybe I did,” Bucky says, grinning slowly. “What are you gonna do about it, Rogers?”

“C’mere!” Steve says, pouncing, and there goes the door to the men’s locker room. They stand beside it, wide-eyed and startled, and Bucky presses his hand over his mouth to try not to grin.

Steve’s mouth is twitching.

“This is bad,” Bucky says. “This is very bad. We’re breaking things now. We need to stop.”

“I didn’t break it on purpose,” Steve complains. “You’d think a door in a gym designed for people like us would be, you know, sturdier.”

“Do you think my ma woulda bought that?” Bucky asks, leaning on Steve’s shoulder.

“Nah,” Steve says, quieter, closing his eyes and leaning his head on top of Bucky’s. “Mine neither.”

“Remember-” Bucky says, and Steve’s smiling again, different, softer. “Remember in sixth grade, when you and Delaney got in that fistfight with those boys from the public school, and Ricky and I came in and saved both your skinny asses, but not before you’d fought so hard to get yourself loose you’d ripped your school jacket in half?”

"It was patched eight ways from Sunday,” Steve sighs. “It tore on a seam.”

Bucky snickers. “That was your favorite. ‘It wasn’t my fault, Ma, it tore on a seam.’ Like she was buyin’ anything you were selling.”

“Made me sew it back together myself,” Steve says, closing his eyes. “Took me an hour and a half.”

“And you tore the stitches the next damn week,” Bucky says. “Slugging it out with Bobby Sawyer, because Jackie was trying to cheer for you and you thought that meant you had to show off. Becky had to fix it, your ma woulda killed you.”

“All of you saved my skinny ass,” Steve says. “Over and over again. How did I last a week without you, Buck?”

“Hell if I know,” Bucky sighs. “But I’m starting to think it’s a good thing we kept you in one piece.”

Steve kisses his cheek. “Wanna see if the shower wall works any better than the door?” he offers.

“Christ,” Bucky snorts, shoving his face. “You need a shower. A cold one.”


End file.
